August 26, 2024 Work Session Meeting Minutes

 MINUTES OF THE SCHOOL BOARD OF DISTRICT NO. 40,
YAMHILL COUNTY, McMINNVILLE, OREGON

The Work Session was held August 26, 2024 both in person and via Zoom at the
McMinnville School District Office, 800 NE Lafayette Ave., McMinnville, OR 97128 

The link was https://msd40.zoom.us/j/97721628814

At 6:31 p.m. the Board of Directors of McMinnville School District opened the work session meeting.  The meeting was called to order by Chair Jason Bizon.  Roll call indicated the following:

BOARD MEMBERS PRESENT:
Chair Mr. Jason Bizon
Vice-Chair, Ms. Abbie Warmbier
Ms. Lu Ann Anderson
Christine Bader
Mr. Gerardo Partida
Ms. Doris Towery
Mr. Larry Vollmer

BOARD MEMBERS ABSENT:
None

ADMINISTRATION:
Debbie Brockett, Superintendent
Cherice Bowden, Board Secretary

AUDIENCE:
Brian Crain, Kourtney Ferrua, Jason Hall, Steffanie Frost, Hiran Amerasinghe, Diane Longaker, Christine Bader and Beth Downs.

• Interview Candidates
  Chair Jason Bizon stated that we are going to start off with interviewing potential candidates for appointment for the open positions we have on our board.  We will take those applicants in the order they were received.  We received six total applicants applying for the position.  The top three that were voted on by the board are here today. We will look for an appointment at the next business meeting in September.  

  Each candidate gave a brief introduction:

  Christine Bader stated that she has lived in McMinnville since 2019.  She has twins, a son and daughter who will be starting 7th grade at Duniway MS.  She is in her second year as head coach of the Valley Panthers Girls Rugby  Club, which is primarily MAC high school students.  She is constitutionally incapable of being part of a community and not looking actively for ways to help and serve.

  Beth Downs stated that she is a retired school teacher.  She taught for 28 years at Patton MS.  She is an adjunct at Linfield University where she is a supervisor for student teachers. 

  Diane Longaker stated that she has three adult children.  She moved here 16 years ago.  She has served on the PTA, Psych Council, Juliet House, YCAP, Habitat for Humanity and Kiwanis Club President.  She enjoys being a part of the community and giving back to kids and adults and anybody that needs a little extra support.

  Each Board member asked the three candidates the following questions:

  1. Director Partida asked: Have you served on any boards and what is your experience?
  2. Director Anderson asked: What are your thoughts on cell phones, AI, and book challenges?
  3. Director Towery asked: How do you build relationships and partnerships inside and outside of the District?
  4. Vice-Chair Warmbier asked: What are your skills working with data?
  5. Chair Bizon asked: Why?  What is your reason for running for this position?
  6. Director Vollmer asked:  If you are chosen for this position, would you run for the seat in 2025?

  Christine Bader:

  1. She understands the role of an advisory board.  She is currently on an advisory panel for Diversity and Sustainability.  She was asked by the Career Center at her Alma Mater at Amherst College to be on the Advisory Council.  She served there for a few years.  She has been on the advisory board for a while for the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, the OP Ed Project.  She was on the Yale West Coast Advisory Board for a few years and was on the City’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Committee (DEI).  
  2. Cell phones – She has seen how destructive it is.  She has heard from the teacher how distracting it is.  We need to come together as a community and figure out a good solution on a timeline, because it is a huge problem. Books – She served on the committee that reviewed the challenge materials in full transparency.  She found the discussion to be full of integrity, very carefully following a process, following the policies the board itself has spelled out, and not imposing our own personal opinions.  AI – She teaches at Lindfield in the master of science business program. It is a struggle for students to read a 700 word opinion piece and summarize it. They use ChatGPT.  She has to figure out more work in the classroom as opposed to assigning homework.
  3. Being able to work together and understand where people are coming from.  Having one on one conversations as much as possible.  
  4. As a director of social responsibility and Amazon is an incredibly data driven company, I could not go into a meeting with senior executives, and say we must  respect people’s human rights, and factories that seem to drop below the level of paying people on time and correctly, having this many grievances in a month, missed this many product defects; I had to go in with data.  I am very comfortable with numbers.
  5. She has had such a good experience in the district.  Anything she can do to support our educators and our staff; she would really welcome the opportunity to put her physical and analytical skills to work.
  6. She would absolutely consider it, but would also consider if this turns out not to be the best fit for her skill set and someone else could serve better, she would hope that they would do that.  Yes,  she would consider running.

  Beth Downs:

  1. Has not worked on any voting boards but did school psych council.
  2. Cell phones – It is an issue in schools right now.  Her opinion is; no cell phones, educate parents to contact the school if there is an emergency.  AI – Should be on Chrome Books as it is easier to manage.  Have a policy that everyone would agree to.  Books – She served on the book committee and followed the district process.
  3. Chat with the students and parents.  She likes to chit chat with the people in the antique store.  She volunteered for a pride party and held a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity. 
  4. Does not like to talk about data.  She cares about how a student feels and views themselves.  Testing is making money on the backs of our students.  Data driven; not driven by that.
  5. She has the time, it is within her skill set and knowledge.  She has a good understanding of the school system and cares about it..  She wants to create a district where students are happy and safe.
  6. It would depend on how things go.  Yes, she can imagine herself running.

  Diane Longaker:

  1. She worked at Juliet House and was on the board at St Barnabas Soup Kitchen. She was a part of the Youth Sports Council in San Diego. President of a board where she was the Regional Commissioner and a president  of a board with 35 members, Soroptimist and Kawanis.  
  2. Cell phones – She agrees with taking them out of the classroom.  They are distracting.  AI – It has a time and place.  If using it as a tool and not 100 percent.  Books – Hold value whether we agree with the content, it has a purpose to quite a bit of the published material that exists.  She doesn’t think that any books should be banned.
  3. She networks and builds relationships. She made sure she knew the teachers and how to support them.  Through her different jobs she has built external relationships.  She attends Greeters and the Woman to Woman network. 
  4. She can do data, she can do it well, can read a spreadsheet and read budgets to identify where things aren’t correct and find out why they aren’t, and learn how we can possibly rectify it.
  5. She is 100% about kids.  She feels they deserve an opportunity for an education that is fit for them.  Not all education is created equally and each kid needs something a little bit different.  She wants to be a part of that.
  6. Yes, she is willing to run in 2025

• CampFire Update
  Superintendent Brockett shared an update after several discussions with the interim CEO of Campfire.  Campfire has enough staffing for only three sites. The superintendent has  concerns about equity.  She shared Campfire’s financial shortfalls, the seats that are available for each location and bussing cost from site to site.  

  Vision of EL Program
  Director Ferrua shared a presentation of the CIA Vision for EL Department.  The amazing staff that will be supporting the program was shared and the number of active, exit monitored, and the 24-25 newcomers were reviewed.  The first 30 day plan was also shared.  See presentation.

  Subcommittee Reports
  Subcommittee reports were given by the board:  

  • Fiscal Subcommittee: 

  Discussed financial reports for the close out for the school year.  We have seen the resolution and  received bargaining updates. Chair Bizon congratulated Dr. Brockett and Director Hall on their certificate of excellence award.

  • Instructional Improvement Subcommittee: 

  Discussed the EL Vision, reviewed the schedule for the week in service.  Reviewed enrollment.

  • Policy Subcommittee: 

  Focused on special education policies and procedures that needed to be updated based on the new laws that were passed by the legislature regarding students on IEPs and what the process and procedure is going to look like moving forward.  Discussed  restraints and seclusions.  SB790 created some new reporting requirements, so our policy needs to reflect the information in the SB.

  • Long Range Planning Subcommittee: 

  Discussed a new fundraising opportunity for grad night.  Looking at seniors decorating a parking space. Discussed all of the work being done to finish up Willamette. Vice- Chair Warmbier kudoed the team of maintenance grounds keepers.

  Directors Comments
   Director Partida said, “Thank you, great job, congratulations again,” Jason Hall, great job for getting the certificate of excellence.  Welcome back day was a great event.  It was nice to see everybody in one place.  He thanked the superintendent for sharing pictures of students starting school today. It was great to see everybody smiling.

  Director Anderson echoed her fellow board members.  Brian and his team did an astounding job getting everything put together. She visited a couple of schools; the enthusiasm was very palpable everywhere.

  Director Towery stated congratulations for all of the amazing work getting things ready and for getting the certificate of excellence.  Welcome back was positive, it’s going to be a great year. She is looking forward to seeing all of the good things to come out of our district.

  Director Vollmer stated that a couple Saturday’s ago there was a gathering at Sue Buel ES for the backpack give away.  In addition to that, you have Juliets’s House, Head Start and Kiwanis where they give all the kids shoes and things like that.  There were a little over 600 deserving students and 2000 people marched through a really brightly clean building.  He appreciates the district’s willingness to house the event year in and year out.  It means a lot to the students that come through there.

  Vice-Chair Warmbier stated it’s gonna be an awesome year.  There are so many things that we can see happening in the building and there are so many things we can’t see happening.  Thank you to all of the secretaries that got enrollment finished, all of the teachers that got everything ready for the kids to come  today or tomorrow.  So much unseen work done by all of our employees to thank you for getting ready for the start of this awesome school year.

  Chair Bizon states that as a parent, Synergy has been awesome.  He really likes it.  He gets a lot of text messages, emails and he knows what’s going on and he can get into his kids class to see the teacher’s schedule.  Training has been intense and there have been a lot of obstacles.  He thanked everyone for all of their work.

    Upcoming dates:

  • Board Business meeting September 9 and October 14, 2024
  • Work Session meeting September 23, and October 28, 2024.

  The Session adjourned at 8:33 p.m.